Jerome

Note exactly what the psalmist is saying: “And does justice.” Now, the Holy Spirit did not say, one who practices chastity, who applies wisdom, who exercises fortitude. Yet these are excellent virtues indeed. Wisdom, for example, is of great advantage to us; fortitude is valuable in resisting persecution; finally, temperance and chastity are indispensable in preventing us from losing our souls. Justice alone is the great virtue and the mother of them all. Someone may ask, “How is justice greater than all the other virtues?” The other virtues gratify the one who possesses them; justice does not give pleasure to the one possessing it but instead pleases others. If I am wise, wisdom delights me; if I am brave, my fortitude comforts me; if I have been chaste, my chastity is my joy. On the contrary, justice does not benefit the one who has it but all the wretched who do not have it. Suppose that some poor person has a quarrel with my brother; suppose that my brother is powerful and with his power crushes the other one, I mean, the stranger to me, the poor and wretched person. Of what avail is my wisdom to the poor person? Of what avail my courage? My chastity, how does it help the poor person? Justice is the virtue that benefits him, for I do not regard the person of my brother but judge according to truth. Justice knows no brother, it knows no father, it knows no other; it knows truth; it is not a respecter of persons; it imitates God.

There are some who, from the fact that the Lord entered through closed doors, adduce proof that a different body arose from that which died. Let these heretics hear what the Lord recounts in this verse.… Most certainly, after the Savior suffered and died, that body was laid in the tomb that had been alive; that same body, therefore, that had been lying lifeless and dead in the tomb rose from the dead. If, moreover, that same body arose from the dead in the Lord, how do some come to the conclusion that, though it was wonderful and spiritual, it was not a human body? We are not saying that we deny the body of Christ assumed that glory that we believe we also are going to receive as saints, for then indeed, this corruptible body will put on incorruption, and this mortal body will put on immortality. Just as before the Lord suffered his passion, when he was transformed and glorified on the mountain, he certainly had the same body that he had had down below, although of a different glory, so also after the resurrection, his body was of the same nature as it had been before the passion but of a highter state of glory and in more majestic appearance.

[Daniel 2:22] "It is He who reveals deep and hidden things, and He knows what is placed in the darkness, and with Him is the light." A man to whom God makes profound revelations and who can say, "O the depth of the riches of the knowledge and wisdom of God!" (Romans 11:33), he it is who by the indwelling Spirit probes even into the deep things of God, and digs the deepest of wells in the depths of his soul. He is a man who has stirred up the whole earth, which is wont to conceal the deep waters, and he observes the command of God, saying: "Drink water from thy vessels and from the spring of thy wells" (Proverbs 5:15). As for the words which follow, "He knows what is placed in the darkness, and with Him is the light," the darkness signifies ignorance, and the light signifies knowledge and learning. Therefore as wrong cannot hide God away, so right encompasses and surrounds Him. Or else we should interpret the words to mean all the dark mysteries and deep things (concerning God), according to what we read in Proverbs: "He understands also the parable and the dark saying." (Proverbs 1:6, LXX) This in turn is equivalent to what we read in the Psalms: "Dark waters in the clouds of the sky" (Psalm 18:11). For one who ascends to the heights and forsakes the things of earth, and like the birds themselves seeks after the most rarified atmosphere and everything ethereal, he becomes like a cloud to which the truth of God penetrates and which habitually showers rain upon the saints. Replete with a plenitude of knowledge, he contains in his breast many dark waters enveloped with deep darkness, a darkness which only Moses can penetrate and speak with God face to face (Exodus 33:11), of Whom the Scripture says: "He hath made darkness His hiding-place" (Psalm 18:11).